Your 5 Step Training Plan for Winning at the Office

Right now, someone (or many someones) is sweeping the debris from Bourbon Street from last night’s Mardi Gras celebrations, while many others sleep off the damage. We are now officially in a season of discipline (for those who observe Lent).

Discipline isn’t sexy, but we can be reminded of its value as we watch the Olympic games going on in Vancouver right now. (Check out some truly inspiring images here.)The Olympics are the culmination of years of training and discipline by athletes who made some choices that were often tough: getting out of bed earlier to hit the gym/track/slopes, passing on the junk food/beer/wine, going to bed at a reasonable hour instead of nodding off on the sofa waiting for the next episode of Real Housewives.

We all make these sorts of choices. Even if you aren’t an elite athlete, you can be a winner at work by approaching your professional life like an athlete-in-training.

1. Pursue your passion. Who wants to spend their whole life working for the weekend? Not me. We can’t all be Bono or Steve Jobs or Usain Bolt, but we can find our fit and commit to employing our skills with energy and enthusiasm.

2. Set your sights. Athletes train with some kind of goal in mind, be it a race, competition, game or a personal record. What are you going for - top sales performance for your division? Seeing a project proceed to completion on time and on budget? Acing your next performance review? Go beyond your “to-do” list and create your “Ta Da!” list. When you check things off your “Ta Da!” list, you feel more than a sense of tidy productivity, you will feel deep satisfaction.


3. Put together a plan. A good training plan usually involves a few components: routine repetitive tasks, demanding skill specific exercises and endurance work. The idea is to put as much on auto-pilot as possible so that your personal resources are reserved for the most demanding tasks. This is as applicable to the office worker as it is to the marathoner.

4. Challenge yourself. If you never push yourself farther than you think you can go, you will never know how far you actually can go. Might you fail? Yes, but so what? Elite athletes may be genetically gifted, but I don’t think one of them entered the world in gold medal form. Without trotting out all those virtues-of-failure quotes, suffice it to say there is a lot falling and failing and often pain and injury before mastery is achieved.

5. Don’t give up. Some days are going to be hard. You’ll be tired and cranky and doubt will start to creep in. You’ll doubt your ability, your judgement, your purpose. Don’t. Have a little faith in yourself and your plan because somedays its about just showing up and doing the work. No one breaks a record every day.

Not only do I think you should put yourself in the athlete-in-training mindset, I also recommend you declare it wherever you go – as in: Thanks for bringing in your leftover cupcakes from little Janey’s birthday party, but I’ll have to pass. I’m in training. Or maybe this: Dude, I hate to cut our convo about your upcoming child support hearing short but I’ve got some heavy analysis to do. I’m in training. Be proud every time you choose discipline over distraction. That’s how the race is won.

Are you going for the gold?

Just a reminder: Vmeals is offering discounts equal to the US medal count. Keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook posts for updated discount codes!